Govt urged to stop illegal migration

Academics and migrant rights activists on Saturday urged the government to stop illegal migrations for the betterment of workers who were going abroad through legal channel. At the second monthly forum meeting of Bangladesh Association of International Recruiting Agencies at CIRDAP auditorium, they also urged the recruiting agencies to take up their responsibility to ensure safe migration of workers they were sending abroad. Dhaka University professor Tasneem Siddiqui, also the Refugee and Migratory Movements Research Unit founding chair, said that the recruitment agencies association should to take its formal ‘shape’ in action and it must take the responsibility to the workers sent abroad by them. BAIRA should sit with the government and negotiate all relevant issues of migration and send more workers abroad, she said.

Ovibashi Karmi Unnayan Programme chairman Sakirul Islam said that the government should not allow individual visas as most of the individual visas were being collected by a quarter of recruiting agencies who were charging high for such visas. All employment visas under recruitment agencies should be approved to make the recruitment agency accountable, he said. Daily Bhorer Kagoj editor Shyamol Dutta said that illegal migration should not be encouraged by vested quarters of travel agents and BAIRA should come forward to check illegal migration. Bangladeshi Ovhibashi Mahila Sramik Association director Sumaiya Islam said that overseas workers, particularly females, were often being victimised by the employers and local recruiting agents.

BAIRA and government should jointly take responsibility to ensure safety of the migrant workers abroad, she said. BAIRA secretary general Monsur Ahmed Kamal said that around 30 lakh able workers were currently unemployed in the country. BAIRA is keen to work with the government to send workers abroad to minimise unemployment, he said. BAIRA president Abul Bashar, its senior vice-president Ali Haider Chowdhury and Dhaka University professor of development studies Rashed Al Mahmud Titumir also spoke at the function.

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